This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for testing the effects of a motor vehicle accident in which at least one motor vehicle is guided to a previously defined point of collision.
In the motor vehicle industry, crash tests are often used to test new vehicles for their crash worthiness. In these tests, the motor vehicles are moved and collided with an obstacle. The obstacle itself can be at rest or it can be a second moving motor vehicle. The accidents simulated here are made to correspond to accidents which particularly endanger the motor vehicle and its occupants, such as, for example, a roll over of the vehicle. They also simulate the most frequent accidents known from accident statistics, such as, for example, rear-end collisions, frontal or lateral collisions and the collision of different vehicles at different angles.
During and after the simulated accident, stress and damage to the vehicles and its simulated occupants are recorded and evaluated for the purpose of improving the active and passive restraint systems for the vehicle's occupants. In some cases, the crash tests also serve as a check of the motor vehicles produced by computer calculation and simulation.
In the crash tests, the motor vehicle can be guided in a controlled fashion, e.g., by remote control of its steering and speed. Simulated vehicle occupants are usually carried in the form of dummies.
German Offenlegungsschrift 3,248,192, describes an apparatus which records the data of a motor vehicle before an accident and, like the flight recorder in aircraft, can be used essentially as a recorder of conditions in an actual accident. Data for the speed, brake actuation, horn, indicators, etc. are recorded and, in the case of an accident, can be used to provide information on, for example, incorrect actuation of an indicator or excessive speed and thus can be used to assess liability. Only the data of the last 200 meters of travel of the vehicle are available, however, because all previously recorded data will have been erased.
A disadvantage here is that with neither method or apparatus is it possible to reproduce an actual accident with respect to the vehicles involved, vehicle speed, direction of travel, etc. In the crash test, an accident is only brought about in order to test the effects on the motor vehicle. The accident does not reproduce one which has actually happened in traffic, but is only ever a simulated version of a typical accident provided by accident statistics.
The accident recorder according to German Offenlegungsschrift 3,248,192 is not suitable for simulating the course of such accidents. It only supplies data on an accident which has already occurred. Also, it is not possible to perform a test on various influencing factors on the accident with this apparatus.
Another disadvantage is that no environmental influences, such as, for example, a wet or slippery roadway or differences in the surface of the roadway during the accident, can be taken into account.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method for testing the effects of a motor vehicle accident of the type mentioned above in such a way that an accident which has actually happened can be reproduced. In addition, it is intended to provide an apparatus which guides one or more motor vehicles in accordance with the course of the accident.